It’s funny how much television and radio commercials shape the modern landscape.  But then, isn’t that the point?  Very recently there was a commercial on the radio for remote controlled window blinds for the home.  For a large meeting room or conference center, or for a series of office suites that somebody wants to look all the same from the outside, the remote controlled blind could be, and in some cases probably is, a good idea.  But for your home?  Unless your living room windows are in Jack Nicholson’s house, your blinds probably aren’t that far away from where you’re sitting.

Remote window blinds might seem to be the height of lazy right now, but if we look at some of the remote and automatically controlled conveniences – and some necessities even – we might see how our landscape has changed over the past not too many years.

There could be some of you who have never seen a television without remote control.  There used to be a time when the remote was optional.  It was there but the set still had all of its power, volume, and channel buttons right out in the open.  Before that, if you wanted remote control you had to have children.

Cars are a treasure trove of automation.  Some don’t even need their keys.  You get close to the vehicle and it unlocks, you press a button and it starts, you stop long enough and it stops.  Now that might still be a pretty fancy car but even daily drivers do stuff for their drivers daily.  When was the last time you turned on your car headlights?  Most cars now come with light sensors that automatically turn on the lights when needed and off when not.  They also know to turn off airbags protecting an unoccupied seat.  Doors lock and unlock, trunks and hatches open and close at the touch of the right button.

Automation has been with our major household appliances for years.  Consider the self-cleaning oven.  It’s hard to find one now that isn’t.  Need ice?  Probably your freezer handles that chore on its own.  Generations have grown up not ever knowing when to stop a cycle to put the fabric softener in the washer.  You put the pretreatment, bleach, detergent, and softener all before you start it up and the machine doses them to your clothes at the appropriate times.

Probably someone thought it was laziness when each of these conveniences hit the landscape.  Today, even those critics rely on an inanimate object to get their clothes clean; even the daily jogger isn’t so wrapped up in physical exercise that he or she actually walks across a room to change the channel on a television set.  So blinds that open and close at the push of a button aren’t all that unexpected.  Now the real challenge is for someone to invent blinds that know when to open and close.  Until that happens, if you want to handle that chore remotely you better have more kids.

Now that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you.